Black Panther

I enjoyed the Black Panther movie. The story, the characters, and especially the villain was well balanced and defined in this Marvel movie. This is my spoilery review.

The Good

The characters were really solid. It’s an all-star cast!

Letitia Wright is amazing as Black Panther’s sister, Shuri. She was having fun and it really showed. She’s also starred in an episode of Black Mirror: Black Museum.

Michael B. Jordan knocked it out of the park as Erik Killmonger. Marvel finally did a villain justice by fleshing out a backstory with motivation for why he does the things he does. As a child, he knows he is from Wakanda and a potential heir to the throne. He returns home to find his father dead with claw marks. All his father wanted to do was help arm his people to fight back. It’s so tragic!

The Bad

I thought the fight sequences weren’t as dramatic as Captain America: Civil War. Most notably the final fight between Black Panther and Erik Killmonger.

The problem is that these two individual not only have enhanced physical abilities due to the special herb, they also are wearing vibranium outfits that makes them virtually indestrucible! They could fight for days or even weeks, so the writers had to place the final fight along the CG tracks where the suits would yield/weaken.

I’m being nit-picky here, but the movie physics didn’t make sense. If vibranium is virtually indestructible and aborbs the kinetic energy of objects that hits the suit, then what on earth can knock down Black Panther? I just didn’t understand how Erik Killmonger was able to blast down BP during the scene where Klaw was being broken out.

Final Thoughts

The movie is a Shakesperean tragedy.

The good isn’t always good, the bad isn’t always traditionally bad. The son, T’Challa, has to make right the wrongs of his father, T’Chaka, for abandoning his brother’s child and covering it up. The audience can understand why Killmonger would seek out revenge and weaponize his people that Wakanda has politically chosen not to be involved with. Erik can be seen as a product of good people making seemingly bad choices.

There is the change that T’Challa must go through to become king, despite his father saying it’s hard to be a good king and a good person at the same time. By the end of the movie, Black Panther chooses his own path to open up Wakanda to the outside world for the first time and to reach out to those that need it.

There’s a lot to unpack in the movie. It can be analzyed for quite some time, and possibly a complaint to be had is that the movie isn’t long enough to delve into everything as much as it could have– considering it’s a movie that’s PG-13 and 2 hour 14 minutes long, which is already long.

I pointed out more “bad things” I disliked than I liked only because there’s a lot going for the movie. It’s a good movie with small imperfections that were easy to point out. But overall I loved the movie and look forward to director Ryan Coogler’s future work.